16-year-old shot by Taliban seeks free education for all

UNITED NATIONS - She spoke in a high-pitched voice that showed her youth, but her message was grown-up, defiant, so poignant that it prompted everyone hearing it to rise to their feet in applause.

UNITED NATIONS — She spoke in a high-pitched voice that showed her youth, but her message was grown-up, defiant, so poignant that it prompted everyone hearing it to rise to their feet in applause.

Malala Yousufzai, who was shot by the Taliban last year after speaking out in favor of girls’ education in Pakistan, spent her 16th birthday yesterday at the United Nations, where she called on world leaders to provide free, compulsory education for every child.

“Let us pick up our books and our pens,” Yousufzai told young leaders from 100 countries at the U.N. Youth Assembly. “They are our most-powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.”

Noting that she was proud to be wearing a pink shawl that had once belonged to Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister of Pakistan, Yousufzai delivered her first major speech since she was shot point-blank in the head by a Taliban hit man while returning home from school Oct. 9 in Pakistan’s Swat Valley.

She said the attackers also shot her friends. “They thought that the bullets would silence us,” she said, “but they failed. And then, out of that silence came thousands of voices.”

Yousufzai has been promoting education for girls since 2009 when the Taliban pressed their violent campaign against girls’ education in northwestern Pakistan. More than 800 schools there have been attacked.

It was not until she was shot, however, that she gained global attention and began to galvanize global support for the issue.Yesterday, she and her supporters also unveiled the Malala Fund to raise money and distribute grants to support education for girls.

At the U.N., Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of South Korea introduced Yousufzai to the youth assembly, saying “extremists showed what they feared the most: a girl with a book.”

Yousufzai, who was in grave condition after the attack, said she had no desire for revenge against the Taliban or other terrorists. She credited her nonviolent philosophy and ability to forgive to lessons taught to her by her parents, who were listening in the audience.